Why this is leading practice
During 2006 and 2007, Joseph Turner Primary School linked up with ‘Mind Kind’ strategies, receiving training in staff meetings and INSET. This training gave staff a better understanding of how children learn and provided staff with a ‘toolkit’ of useful strategies to improve learning, more specifically writing. This training was the catalyst for a tool the school chose to develop further and take on as a whole school strategy for speaking and writing; they named it ‘The E Plan‘.
Writing was identified as an area which needed developing across the school. A strategy was required that would embrace the whole school and could be adapted to any age or ability of child. The E planning tool for writing focuses on language and speaking as a key to planning writing: “Tell Me More about…”. In house training was provided to make this tool ‘fit’ our school and situation and flow progressively from Reception to Year 6. Staff responded positively (evidenced through feedback, learning walks, moderation of work, interviews with staff and children) After using this tool for a year, it was clear that staff and children alike found that the ‘E plan‘ was effective in improving speaking, writing and progression as well as a useful planning tool for writing. A Network meeting was called in response to its success and the tool was shared with Albert Prichard Infant and Mesty Croft Primary Schools. Head teachers and lead teachers (3 from each school) were present at this meeting and the passion shared by Joseph Turner staff resulted in the Network taking on board this speaking, planning and writing tool in each of the schools and researching its impact. The network team met regularly to share progress in their own schools and INSET was provided for all three schools together in addition to in-house training. The Network team were so convinced that this tool is ‘leading practice’ that a research project was undertaken to quantify the impact of its use in our schools.
Impact to date
• Standards in writing have improved markedly with the majority of KS2 pupils achieving more than 2 sub-levels of progress within a year
• Children have increased confidence to speak their ideas to themselves (self talk), in paired talk or group situations
• Children are able to develop their thoughts…tell me more about…and this allows them to improve their writing by using their speaking and planning tool to construct a rich and interesting sentence.
• Children are more motivated to write because of the enthusiasm they have developed during the process of speaking and planning and enjoy their success when they produce good sentences.
• The tool is accessible to all learners, ages, gender etc and has a positive impact in building confidence and improving writing across all types. Some children have jumped more than two sublevels during a year as a result. (Accurate assessment and consistent moderation of independent writing required to reach each sub level.)
Rationale / Start Point
The ‘E Plan‘learning to learn tool was chosen very specifically for its effectiveness and efficiency. It was important to identify one learning strategy that could be applied across all schools, all year groups, all levels of children and could eventually be applied to other areas of the curriculum as well as literacy. The efficiency as well as the effectiveness of the tool was key in it being chosen as a leading strategy in our schools: Children could use this tool to speak, plan and write, improving writing in all areas of the curriculum. Writing was identified as a key area which needed to be improved in all network schools and the need for an effective tool which was simple to use and effective in improving a child’s speech and writing from any age was very important, especially in the light of data which showed our children were starting school at a disadvantage:
• Foundation Stage baseline data showed that the children in all three schools entered well below national expectations, particularly in Communication Language and Literacy (CLL).
• Individual schools’ data identified that trends over time indicated that there had been improvements in standards through implementation of specific programmes.
It was felt that we needed to move from teaching children, to enabling the children to learn effectively and independently. It was agreed that the research focus would focus specifically on developing children’s language for writing, resulting in the raising of standards.
Key Strategies
- Intense-training sessions with ‘MIND KIND’ involving colleagues from network schools
- The use of Big Picture planning throughout the whole school accommodates the use of speaking, planning, writing and use of the E Plan in a flexible, and child focussed way, using steps rather than days to plan and structure a programme of work
- Planning shows the use of this tool across all subjects and essentially in literacy across the whole school
- Planning shows the progressive use and impact of the strategy
- Monitoring by SLT of teaching reflects the use of the E Plan appropriately across the whole school
- Half termly formal monitoring of literacy (and planning using the E plan tool) shows the improvement in writing across all genres.
- SIP shows the impact of training and INSET and shows progressive development of the learning tool and next steps for Joseph Turner Primary School in relationship to Mind Kind. INSET is fruitful!
- The Network team leader reviews evidence, feedback, to assess impact and next steps and shares with leadership team. Mind Kind team in school assess and review their areas of work and feedback for future learning steps.
Sustainability and Further Development
- An aim to ensure that all children can use the E Plan independently
- To refresh the E Plan approach (September 2009) in readiness for new staff
- To consider another of the MIND KIND strategies that could operate in addition to the E Plan
- To develop the E Plan tool to further support non-fictional writing